When Cathy Taylor read last week that a Maryland woman was killed in a head-on crash on Del. 1 near Townsend, memories rushed back to 2011, when her daughter was involved in a similar crash at the same location and died of her injuries.

In the news photos of the Feb. 25 crash that claimed the life of Brigitte Best of Ocean Pines, the roadside shrine of Taylor's daughter, 28-year-old Nicole Cook, could be eerily seen in the background.

"It's just sad," Taylor said. "I feel for that family because a cable guard rail could have helped her and kept her on her side of the road. How many times does it take for someone to die at an accident scene for them to put up a median?"

State officials acknowledge that the barriers can save lives, especially in stopping vehicles from crossing the median into oncoming traffic, but the barriers are expensive and there are many miles more to be addressed.

Best, 78, was driving north on Del. 1 when she lost control of her car on the snow-covered roadway and veered across the grass median into the southbound lanes where she collided head-on with a van, police said.

The limited-access portion of Del. 1, stretching 51 miles from I-95 to Dover Air Force Base, was completed in 2003 with long stretches having no steel guard rails or other barriers in the grass median.

The state Department of Transportation began installing cable guard rails – a less expensive alternative to traditional steel guard rails –as part of a 2009 pilot program on a nearly 5-mile stretch of Del. 1 between Del. 299 in Middletown and Pole Bridge Road (Del. 896). The project, paid for with a $748,678 federal grant, was completed in January 2010.

"I always wondered, why did it stop there?" Taylor said. "Why wasn't the fencing along all of the highway?"

Similar guard rail was added along 2.1 miles of I-495 south of Wilmington, from the I-95 split north to U.S. 13, in 2013.

"I would say they've definitely been beneficial in preventing a crash or fatality," said Adam Weiser, safety programs manager for the Delaware Department of Transportation.

Police do not have an accident classification for when vehicles cross a median and collide with oncoming traffic.

A cross sits off the southbound lanes of Del. 1 where a woman was killed in 2011. (Photo: SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)

Between the wreckage of two vehicles that struck head-on along Del. 1 near Townsend on Feb. 25, a cross is visible where a similar fatal crash happened in 2011. (Photo: JOHN J. JANKOWSKI JR./SPECIAL TO THE NEWS JOURNAL)

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Weiser could not provide specific data, either, but said that prior to the installation along that stretch of Del. 1, there had been four fatal crossover crashes in that area. Since then, none.

This spring, DelDOT plans to install more cable guard rails along a 3.7-mile stretch of grass median on Del. 1 from the Roth Bridge to U.S. 13 at Tybouts Corner as part of the state's on-going safety program to prevent crossover crashes on high-speed roads. The cost is $799,680, paid with federal grant money, Weiser said.

Cook, of Ogletown, was the mother of two boys. She died at Christiana Hospital eight days following her July 1, 2011, crash. According to police, she was traveling north on Del. 1 when for an unknown reason she veered off the roadway, over-corrected and lost control of her car. The car went across the median and was hit by a southbound minivan, causing Cook to be ejected.

At the same time, Taylor and her husband were traveling to the beach on Del. 1 when they got backed up in the southbound traffic resulting from her daughter's crash three miles away. The couple exited at U.S. 13 to continue their trip and didn't know that the helicopter that flew overhead was carrying Taylor's daughter.

Across the country, cable guard rails are being used to save lives and reduce costs. The cable barriers absorb collision forces better than a concrete or metal barrier, thereby reducing the impact on drivers and occupants and the overall severity of the crash, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration.

The cable guard rails cost about $15.25 per foot, compared to the standard tri-beam steel guard rail that costs $27 per foot, and damaged sections are quicker to repair than the standard guard rails.

"What we have learned, is they work," said Nick Schirripa, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Transportation, which has used the cable barriers for the past five years. "We've heard from people who have hit them who said the last thing they saw was headlights of on-coming cars."

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Cable guard rails were placed along the median of Del. 1 in a pilot project in 2009-2010 near Odessa.(Photo: SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)

Schirripa said nearly 300 miles of cable barriers are on Michigan's interstate highways. Motorists involved in crashes on divided highways "walk away 95 percent of the time uninjured when compared to steel or concrete barriers, because the barriers absorb the impact."

"How do you account for crashes that never happen once the cable is in place?" he said. "What we've seen in Michigan is an increase in the number of property damage crashes, but the number of fatalities and serious crashes are significantly reduced in those areas."

Michigan is poised to release a 5-year report on the state's success rate and has no crash data available, Schirripa said.

A brochure, however, on the agency's website, claimed 13 lives a year were saved and 51 incapacitating injuries prevented by using cable guard rail.

According to AAA, the 3-cable safety barriers help prevent crossover median crashes and fatalities, said spokesman Jim Lardear.

Compared to metal guide rails, median cables are low cost, easy to maintain and replace and designed to absorb impact and gently deflect a vehicle back on track to help allow the driver to get the vehicle safely back under control, according to federal crash testing, Lardear said.

In Pennsylvania, the state transportation department has spent $1.2 million to install cable guard rails along I-95 between the Delaware state line and Highland Avenue (Exit 3) in Delaware County as part of a safety enhancement project.

In Delaware, a fourth barrier project, on Del. 1, would run 2.6 miles from Pole Bridge Road (Del. 896) to the Roth Bridge. But it remains on the drawing boards with no contractor or start date. After that, nothing has been planned.

Weiser said DelDOT has no "set criteria" for selecting which stretch of median has cable barriers installed.

"We look at crash data and the width of the median," he said. "The median on Del. 1 is generally 60-feet wide. Anything less than 40-feet wide would be a candidate for the metal guardrail."

Along I-95, only 7.07 miles of highway remains unprotected, much of it in northern New Castle County. On Del. 1, 19.95 miles remain without any type of barriers on the stretch from Christiana Mall to Dover Air Force Base, said Ralph Reeb, a DelDOT planning supervisor.

"My plan right now is to look at open medians on Del. 1 from the Christiana Mall to the Dover Air Force Base," Weiser said. However, no timetable has been set.

Taylor, who frequently travels the roadway on the way to the beach, said she was hopeful that on one of those trips she would see a median barrier in place along the highway.